Ra Biffing!

8:30p.m. Saturday.

Shadow boxing earlier in the day, figured I was ready for Cassius Clay. Fee, Fi, Foo, Fum, look out Cassius, here I come!

Anybody know who wrote that?

I used the song in the first thing I ever got paid for, The Marijuana Kid, a radio play I wrote when I was thirty. It was based on the first boxing match I was involved in. At the Mayfield Club in Dalkeith, I think. Most memorable night of my life.

I've just got out of the bath after doing my shadow boxing routine. Three tee shirts, a sweat shirt, and the sleeveless woolly jumper. Quite moderate attire for me really. I skipped for about six or seven minutes, then did six two minute rounds with half a minute intermissions. Not at lot, but it's the pace that kills you, not the distance. Maybe that's not quite as true as with running. In boxing, it's the other guy who kills you. But I'm really quite fit for a 54 year old, considering. Fortunately, I've never been in fights in the street, in pubs, or anything like that. Just when the bell goes ding ding.

The last thing I got paid for writing was about boxing as well. Well, I imagine they paid me for Are You Boys Cyclists? because of the graphic sex, but I wanted to write a memoir of the biffing and my part in the brain damage.

Eight ounce gloves in those days and no headgear for amateur boxing. These days they use ten ounce gloves. Be still sore.

The biffing book was published in 1997. A friend of mine said she was rolling around the floor laughing when she read it. Hadn't the heart to tell her it wasn't supposed to be funny!

The sensei and reverend wrote a really good book about boxing called The Champions New Clothes. If you want to read some good writing in blogs, I'd definitely recommend his current post. If anyone deserves some of ra bliss, it's that boy!

One of the reasons why I'm blogging about biffing is because it's back on the telly tonight. About ten years ago, they showed a series of great British fights at prime time Saturday night. Unfortunately, two of the boxers were taken to hospital with brain haemorrages (?). Watching people collapsing and on the point of death, facing a future of terrible disability, maybe wasn't the kind of thing you wanted kids to be watching on Saturday nights. What a shame! Amazing fights both of them as well, at least up until people started dying in front of a prime tv audience.

I fought a guy in Shotts Miner's Welfare one night. The last time he'd fought at light heavyweight, which is up to twelve and a half stone. I was a welterweight, which is ten and a half stone, or 147 pounds if you're American. Catchweight contest. Shouldn't be allowed. I didn't know till the joe stepped into the ring. Fung big welterweight, says I. After getting battered all over the ring for the first round, I dropped my guard in the second and tried to pretend I was Sugar Ray. Left from the hip to the chin. Twice. The boy looked a wee bit bemused. Left right hook. Right on the button. The boy span a full forty five degrees and fell to his knees, then over onto his gloves and knees.

You're amazed. Inside, you're shouting: Stay down! Stay down! The boy got up. I'd never been fitter in a boxing ring and the next twenty seconds probably weren't the best in his life.

It's in the book. Get it from Amazon. Second hand. Or read something better!

But I really wasn't sure about the biffing after that. Had the boy been a welterweight, that punch would have knocked him out cold, and that's not good for you. You feel the shock going up your arm. Wakened up at four in the morning with the sore bone in my forearm. The whole bone.

The main event tonight is a supermiddleweight contest. Too big, too fit, too dangerous. Shouldn't be allowed. I've blogged recently about getting a wee bit sensitive and not enjoying serious dramas anymore with folk shouting at each other and getting all emotional and what not. Well, will I be watching the boxing? Get the beer in and let's get ready to rumble!!